


with that ugly, terrible thing

by brokethings



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Series, Pre-Series, Suicide Attempt, and basically just 4k words of me being emo about lukas, it's my first fic u guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 02:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11934816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokethings/pseuds/brokethings
Summary: He watches the other boy from across the cafeteria since that’s safe, Philip too focused on remaining as unnoticeable as possible with his chin in his hand and his eyes down towards his table, and Lukas rationalizes that staring is allowed if it’s not observed. No harm in looking while there’s an entire room of careful space between them.Some Lukas perspective, some missing scenes, and his evolution of character + fear.





	with that ugly, terrible thing

He’s learned well how to fall. The mistake is recognized a second before it hits, too late to correct, tire beneath him landing far on one edge and wrenching him towards the ground. The dirt meets him before he has a chance to brace himself, the bike following him down and falling heavy onto his leg, and he can hear Rose shouting some concern from behind him. Pain rocks up his elbow from where it’d touched down hard, pinned under him for a moment until he kicks the dead weight of the bike off of his legs and rolls to sit. Rose is around him suddenly, catching his jaw in her hands to force him to look at her while evaluating him with a worried expression. He’s quick to reassure, brushing himself off though the twist of hurt doesn’t ease its crawl up his arm, attempting to shake it away though the new movements just deepen the ache.

_Don’t be a crybaby. Get up and try again._

Rose continues to fuss, and he brushes her off as she tries to guide him to stand, clambering to his feet alone, as he is nothing if not stubborn. There’s a bit of metallic he can taste in the back of his mouth from where he bit his tongue in the fall, and he spits red into the dust. The jump behind him is too high, too far, and though he probably knew it he is ever eager to prove himself, and he’s already rethinking how he can do it right the next time.

“I don’t get you, Lukas.” He’s pulling his bike upright and revving the engine to ensure it’s not broken, keeping his face turned away from Rose as he doesn’t trust the ignored pain in his elbow to not be betrayed in his expression. She just crosses her arms as she watches, either worried or annoyed. “I can’t even watch your jumps without getting nervous.”

“Oh, c’mon.” A dry laugh comes as a response, straightening himself up the rest of the way when his bike kicks back to life. The reply is what he thinks she’d expect of him, obnoxious and over-confident and one she’ll probably just roll her eyes at. He can act brash and fearless if everyone wants him to. “I’m not scared of anything.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

If it were anywhere else in the universe, Lukas is fairly certain any interest his classmates seemed to have in him would be lost. His popularity is that of circumstance, he as the small-town novelty; a boy with a motorbike and girlfriend and a tendency to throw punches in the school hall is no one new. But a place like Tivoli boasts limited alternatives, and so he has found he can carry some interest. There’s security in having a reputation, and he’s fine to mostly keep his mouth shut to hold it intact. He’s got nothing much good to say, anyway.

Unfortunately, that means he’s not well spoken enough to talk himself out of trouble, either. There’s so much he hates, every single person around him feeling like a waiting threat, and he’s not about to be labeled as weak. So when someone starts speaking of anything he refuses to give thought to, he’s quick to fight. It’s fast at shutting down taunts, a reaction he’s learned to rely on, and one that garners immediate results. And then there’s the aftermath, which always seems to take him by surprise no matter how many times he runs through it.

He’s got a poorly sealed bag of ice pressed to his cheekbone, dripping onto the knee of his jeans and letting the cold lurch him back into his own body, intensely mindful of his surroundings and any blind edge of adrenaline falling away. The other boy is surely waiting just outside, holding a paper towel to the bleeding nose Lukas has given him, seething and waiting for his own reprimands. Time passes loudly in the clock on the wall, the vice principal rattling through Lukas’ offenses in a monotone as it’s a speech they both know well. How violence will not be tolerated, and they’ll have to make a mark on his record and inform his parents of such an infraction.

“Wait,” he says, instantly, “don’t call my dad. I’m sorry. I’ll apologize, okay? He started it, anyway, he---”

But it’s a plea she’s never listened to before, already dialing while his heart sinks deep and cold into his stomach. Some numbed part of him is glad the other boy fought back, that there’s a curl around his eye that is already starting to yellow. He's been taught well how to take a hit, yet he hates answering questions when he shows up in the morning with a pain in his side or purple along his jaw. But with the remnants of the school fight across his face, some worry is alleviated--- no one concerns over a second or third new bruise when one was already apparent.

At least his friends don’t see him like this. The vice principal is his only witness to the fact he nearly tears up, listening detached as she speaks into the receiver, the whole of him terrified and stupid and wishing he were dead.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He lies to Rose a lot. He lies to her so much it’s a reflex. The guilt of it hasn’t quite given up yet, but he figures if he lets himself get further used to it, it’ll ease back eventually. Maybe lying to your girlfriend isn’t something you’re supposed to become accustomed with, but he’s not sure what other choice he has. She’s some shell of protection, a nervous reassurance when he holds her hand in the hallways, and he’s not about to handle constant vulnerability without her. So he’ll continue his lies; she certainly wouldn’t stay without them. 

The latest might be the worst of them. It’s not even real, yet, just a waiting lie that will surely uncoil into a devastating one if he lets it--- which he has no intention of doing. He watches the other boy from across the cafeteria since that’s safe, Philip too focused on remaining as unnoticeable as possible with his chin in his hand and his eyes down towards his table, and Lukas rationalizes that staring is allowed if it’s not observed. No harm in looking while there’s an entire room of careful space between them.

That justification is so weak, though. He’s hollowly aware that he doesn’t look at Philip the way he’s supposed to. Sights stick on his lower lip and just wait there, for a moment, embarrassment seating heavy in Lukas’ stomach. Philip makes him wonder that which he has no business wondering, and he might just hate him for it. His stare is still caught on his mouth, automatically thinking of what Philip would sound like if they were alone, or what he looks like underneath that jacket he always wears, or what he---

“Who’s that?”

Rose’s question pries Lukas back to himself, aware all over again of his surroundings and of the girl who’s running her thumb in affectionate lines across his knuckles. He smiles to her, hoping it comes out reassuring or at least disarming, and tucks her hand into his to squeeze his hold once. 

“He’s good with cameras, apparently. Said he likes motocross, so he offered to help shoot some footage for my channel.”

The answer is swallowed stiff but she doesn’t seem to care much more than a briefly confused look, quickly allowing her attention to be pulled back to the conversation of the rest of the table. Lukas makes a clear point not to glance back to Philip, feeling him around his peripherals and causing an uncomfortable nervousness to constrict in his throat. The boy must have overheard or otherwise just have terrible timing, because he can feel him watching now, burning a blush up Lukas’ neck that he hopes Rose can’t see below his collar.

Philip fucking terrifies him.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, wait, wait, wait. What if someone sees us?”

_This shouldn’t be allowed. This isn’t okay._

“Yeah, like a squirrel?”

_It’s not funny. Please. I think I’m drowning, here, right now. I think someone’s going to kill me, really, I don’t know how or who but it’s unavoidable--- it’ll be either me or you or someone who knows. This isn’t something I’ll survive._

“No one's gonna know about this, because you're never gonna tell them.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It was a nice escape while it’d lasted. Lukas wishes they hadn’t come back at all, that he could somehow hide out with Philip in the city forever. He was almost okay when he was there, being anonymous and having little hanging weighted over him, kissing in public, holding hands with a boy he was falling for too hard. He’d like to be that guy, always. 

It was never going to last, though. It seems with whatever good he gets, he gets a worse counteraction worse doled back to him almost immediately--- cause and effect. He kissed Philip, and those men in the cabin died. He wanted to keep kissing Philip, and Tommy and Tracy died. He escaped with Philip for a night, and his father found out about it. Maybe there’s something he’s supposed to learn, there. 

Carefully, he eases himself back onto his bed, a protective grasp locked around the pain splitting over the side of his ribs. It had been coming from the moment he walked through the door, an empty glass on the very counter his dad hunched over, looking up with only steeled rancor in his expression. The setting itself was too well recognized, Lukas’ eyes locked on the sleeves his father had rolled halfway up his arms, because he knows--- 

_You shouldn’t have gone with Philip. Look what your dad did, you knew he’d have to._

His father had something to say about disappointments, how he’d shown up to an empty parking lot and how he’d expected better of Lukas, that he’s worked too hard to throw it all away now. It was all spoken in that low, even way that’s so farther worse than yelling, awful and calm though the ends of his sentences slurred together because clearly, he’d made some work of the near-empty decanter before him. When he approached, Lukas just looked away.

_Stop being so fucking scared._

Lukas rolls onto his side, curling defensively around the bruise that’s begun to mottle, quietly relieved it’s somewhere beneath his clothes that he can easily hide, that he doesn’t have to look at. His hands have tremors in them when they dig into his shirt, pulling the cloth taut in an attempt to ground himself. It always takes a while for him to feel like he’s inside of his own self again, and he dreads the moment he does. Detachment is safe and impersonal and he doesn’t have to listen to his dad’s words racketing around in his head--- but he can’t stave it off for long, and whatever he’d been able to restrain of the last few minutes comes crushing back violent.

_“I don’t like what’s gotten into you, Lukas. I don’t want you hanging out with that boy anymore.”_

He waits until the downstairs has gone completely silent before shakily retrieving his phone to call Philip. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The gun has a nice weight to it, he thinks. He’s a decent shot, a reluctant companion on his father’s hunting trips since he was old enough to hold a rifle, but those arms are hefty and uncomfortable and never felt right in his grasp. This one is small and easy to fire, he remembers, a quick trigger that was eager to be pulled. He wishes it wasn’t the same gun from the cabin, but perhaps the nausea of that correlation is fitting for the situation.

It’s so easy. To raise it in one hand, flip the safety, cock it once. He’s often figured he’d end up somewhere like this, and with everything that’s happened he’s not really surprised it’s come up quickly. Lukas is not built to last, he’s certain, there’s something rotten in his head that has made him brutally mean and it’s been eating him away too meticulously. Being afraid of everything has ruined him. There is not one safe place left in the entirety of the world. He knows this by now.

The hollow end of the gun gets tucked beneath his chin, in a sole motion, and fires empty. Once, then a second time, then a third.

_Fucking idiot. Goddamn moron, you fired all the bullets, you shot out into the dark when you ran from the cabin, you wasted them on a killer that wasn’t there---_

He’s not scared then. He’s bitterly, absolutely, exhaustively disappointed.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

To feel secure with someone is to be lied to. In his seventeen years of living, he has learned one thing completely--- that someday, over time, anyone will hurt him. If he gives them the chance, they won’t hold back. Trust is a alluring notion but always so ugly in its carry-through, the more anyone knows just means the more they can use against him, and he’s not one to intentionally equip anyone with the means to harm. He likes the perceived image of himself better, anyway. It’s quiet and simple and no one expects him to be anything else. But then there was Philip, and he’d found himself wanting more. Told him things, wanted him to understand, gave him secrets that he’d had to trust he would keep. And he didn’t.

Lukas knew it was coming, it was always going to, that’s what people do--- Philip had sworn he’d never say anything yet he’d still severed right through any promise of that they’d made. It’s expected, maybe, though inevitability at least comes with the potential to remain dormant, a monster that would watch from just below the skin of the water, presence known but ignored. And god, he’d hoped it would have waited longer than this to surface.

_Please. Don’t do this to me. Let me try again. Let me go back and try again. I can be better. I don’t have to take him to the cabin, I don’t have to put my hands on him, I don’t have to pull him beneath me so goddamn eager. I promise. Let me try again._

He hasn’t prayed in a long time but that’s almost what his wishing becomes, that somehow he’ll wake up in the morning and it’ll be days before anything. They’ll see each other at school and the glances they’ll vehemently cut off will carry no knowing. Philip will sit behind him on Lukas’ bike and his arms around his waist will still be as tentative as they were. He’ll watch Philip out of the corner of his eye in class and he won’t remember the half-panic half-relief of being shoved back and Philip using the given space to pull his own shirt off his frame. His father will tell him a horror story of the bodies he found in the cabin, and any fear or worry Lukas feels for it will be entirely separate from his own self, because bad people die every day and it’s not something he’s going to lose much sleep over. He can be that person. He can keep a sober distance between him and Philip. He can be with Rose, he can date her and kiss her and he should want to anyway. 

And it’s a lie, but it’s a comforting one. Lukas has never considered himself to be anyone clever but there are a few things he knows--- that Philip is not someone he can be reversed from, because he’s in Lukas’ head and under his skin and has written himself into his body, they could live a hundred years never touching again and Lukas would still feel him under his hands. Everything’s trapped, now, he’s cornered and caught in his own lies and it’s so simple to try and blame Philip but no, it’s his own fault. It was always his own fault. He let himself become this.

_Helen knows, now. She knows you were there. Everyone will know. Everyone is going to figure out what’s wrong with you and they’re going to hate you. Just you watch._

_Fuck that._  
_Fuck him._  
_Why’d he have to tell her?_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“I'm sorry, Philip. I didn't mean any of it.”

There are too many things he wants to apologize for, and he’d hoped to make up for each one slowly, carefully, but Philip broke the promise first and so he rationalizes his unheard remorse as good enough. He runs his thumb over Philip’s forehead, just once, brushing aside hair that’s stuck there with drunken sweat, but he doesn’t stir. Lukas hopes he doesn’t wake up yet, not until he’s free and clear away from the porch and a mile down the road. Whatever apology Lukas could give wouldn’t be enough, he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to get through it anyway if Philip looked at him again like he did the night before, crushed and painfully sorry.

He forgives him. He might have forgiven him faster than he’d admit, because Philip has some steady hold in him he doesn’t understand, but the truth to Helen just made him react the way he always did. Angry. Scared. Uncertain.

_I didn’t mean any of it. I never mean most of the things I say to anyone but you. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to save either of us._

He hopes Philip will at least remember this much.

_Coward._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lukas likes himself best like this. Philip has a way of making him not quite feel like he’s suffocating, even with that nameless killer always conceivably following just a few paces behind him. There’s an omnipresence of unease that chases them both, now, and there’s not much he can do about it other than keep Philip close and hope that the woman who’s been charged with keeping him safe will do her job. So he lets himself try and relax, put whatever faith he has into her, and let Philip’s presence reassure him in the way it does. He can make some dumb joke and Lukas will actually laugh with it, chasing after him and knocking him to the ground as if he’s a boy on a playground with a crush.

_Oh. I wish I could have met you when we were younger. I would have been better with you. I’m sorry we missed so much, all that time of not knowing each other yet._

Philip keeps leaning up to close the space between them, and Lukas pulls the phone he’d questioned from his grasp and tosses it haphazardly aside, paying little mind to where it falls. Somehow he’s kept himself alive until this point and he’s not about to let anyone ruin that for him. Not when Philip keeps chasing his mouth to kiss him again, not while Lukas is so vulnerable to him that all he can do is sink into the touch.

“Wait. Wait, wait wait.” Philip pulls himself back and Lukas just grins down at him, hands planted on either side of him so he’s all he can see. “What if that guy is really out there looking for us?” 

The question stops him, but he doesn’t allow his image to falter. If he were someone braver then he’d say what comes to mind, things like _I promise you’ll be safe_ , or _I won’t let him hurt you_ , or _I think he’d have to kill me first to get to you_. Those things which are reassuring as thoughts but are far too overwhelming to ever to be spoken; so he leaves them quiet, and it’s easy, so well practiced now at watering himself down.

“No one can find us here.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The time he’s not afraid is possibly the first time he really needs to be.

He mistakes it as a crash, at first, thinking of a concrete wall that has certainly vaporized invisible into his path and with which he’s brutally collided. Immediately is his bike gone, falling into the space he’s somehow forgotten is beneath him, his body chasing heavy after it. It takes a few seconds for the hurt to catch up to his brain at all, exploding like lightning mapping through him. He only barely has time to place himself, suddenly aware of the empty air around him as he falls, the crack of water beneath his back, a violent pain in his chest so big there’s no room left to breathe. When he’d envisioned how he’d die it was always more personal than this, but he finds he’s not scared of it. Not in the way he should be.

He thinks that never got to apologize to Philip right.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_I dream about you a lot. Did you know that?_

He wants to tell him about it. The dreams he has of running away, riding off with Philip on the back of his bike, that those dreams are always the best ones. Tivoli has rotted away to something wholly unwelcoming, now, and most of his memories there are bad ones. The entire landscape is painted inhospitable by thoughts of his mother or father or a killer in the dark, the same things that crawl heavy-footed through the lowest of his nightmares, and he wants to cut Philip out of that. Wants to take him somewhere new, clean, where they can be nameless in their own universe, where no one asks them questions and no one hurts them ever again.

But those things are far off, and again intimidating to actually voice, so Lukas says something else, a well-filtered version of a truth that he thinks will make Philip laugh. A dream where they’ll go to a party, and he’ll kiss him in front of everyone. Lukas is a reckless teenage boy, and fairly certain he’s in love right then, and when you’re a reckless teenage boy you should get to kiss who you’re in love with. It’s only fair.

_Did I completely make that dream up? No. Not completely. In my real dream we run down this road and just don’t look back. Is that okay? Would you mind if I told you?_

It gets the reaction he’s fished for, Philip beaming at him in that disbelieving way that Lukas only sometimes plays up his stupidity to earn.

“All the way to Red Hook, baby.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

He doesn’t follow through on his promise.

Philip doesn’t seem surprised. If Lukas is being honest, he isn’t either.

He so badly wanted to, downing several cups of thin beer to draw out his nerve, but when the time came he wavered. A fast song played, heavy beat that rocked in his frame and made him deeply aware of his own hands, snatching once at Philip’s hip, other thumb along the side of his neck. Eyes were either on him or he felt as though they were, and his shaky confidence fractured, brushing off the contact as though he’d stumbled and dropping quick away from Philip. It was almost something, but not enough of anything, and Lukas could tell Philip was disappointed.

So after they left in the dark, Lukas makes certain to tug him behind the barn and push him fast to the wall, kissing an apology into his throat and running half-drunk hands through his hair. Philip is a litany of reassurances, then, pressing back against him without hesitation, repeating _Lukas_ and _it’s okay_ as if those are the only things that need to be said at the moment.

_Wait for me. I can be better._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Tell me something about you. Something I don’t know.”

A game he’s teased at before--- first, in the city, and one he’s repeated a few times since then. It takes Lukas aback each time, how Philip can ask and he’ll actually find himself wanting to answer. He’s forgotten some things about himself, he’s come to realize, some very important things that Philip keeps drawing to the surface just by looking at him in that way he does. Lukas always considered himself to be someone without much to him, no real stories to share or memories that needed to be kept. And he certainly hasn’t remembered much about himself just yet, and maybe he won’t for a long time, but if he does he’d like it if Philip were there to see it.

“I don’t know. I don’t think I really have secrets.”

They’ve found themselves back at Philip’s house, the party forgotten behind them as Lukas snuck up into his room and slotted against him in his bed. This one, he thinks, is so much better than the one downstairs he had to try and sleep in a month before. He was relieved Philip was with him then and he’s relieved now, but these sheets smell like him and this feels like a room that should belong to Philip. With photos on the wall and clothes slung over a chair and his music playing almost inaudibly from his phone on the nightstand. It’s a kind of place he could get so easily used to.

“Are you kidding me? Everything about you is a secret.”

“No, not like that, I mean--- not with them. With you. You know--- my stuff.”

_I don’t want them to know me. They don’t get to._

“You tell me some things, I’ll give you that, but come on. Something. Favorite movie, favorite song, what you like, what you hate, what you’re afraid of---”

_What you’re afraid of._

Such conversations are nothing Lukas is articulate in and so Philip trails along with his list, forever the waiting hand to pull him through that which he is unfamiliar with. Lukas forgets his pause for a moment to watch him speak, the way his mouth moves, and he’s so grateful for that instant that he can’t breathe. Because here’s this beautiful boy and he’s saying things just for him, and he suddenly knows Philip could do just about anything and Lukas would tear through his own fears with his bare hands to make him stay.

 _I’m afraid of them._  
_I’m afraid of me._  
_I’m afraid of you._  
_I’m afraid of me around you._  
_I’m afraid of everything._  
_You make me not want to be._

He cuts Philip’s easy rambling short when Lukas leans into him further, tangling his legs into his and letting his hand find his waist. They both hover there, for a second, Lukas’ forehead tucked along Philip’s, everything waiting to be said. What Philip makes him want--- to be with him, to be alive, to be okay.

_Tell him you're in love with him._

**Author's Note:**

> jinkies it's my first fic
> 
> honestly this is just a stream of consciousness mess bc i think about lukas a lot and i identify too hard with his character so i wanted to get it all down?
> 
> i hope u like it yikes


End file.
